When Robert Jones went to Turkey for a rest, he had no idea he would find his serenty hundreds of feet in the air.
15 June 2005
The chilled white wine was a reward not only for the business meeting we had earlier but also to cool us down whilst we were enjoying our lunch, overlooking the bay at Oludeniz in Turkey, as the heat rose to around 35oC. There were boats bobbing on the sea, people cooling themselves in the waves and then we saw it – a paraglider was landing on the promenade just in front of us.
We had seen them earlier in the day, floating serenely in the air above but here was one actually coming in to land. Ron, one of our group remarked how mad the man must be to do such a sport. As the owner of an adventure travel website who had gone to Turkey to sample some of the activities available, I just had to point out that the person was undoubtedly having a wonderful experience and that that was what holidays were all about. As I put down my glass I suddenly realised what was about to happen…. “Ok, if you think that paragliding is a great holiday experience, why don’t you do it?” I refilled my glass and replied “ I’ll do it if you will” to which he replied – you must be joking. If we were meant to fly, we’d have wings!” “Only nutters would do that”. I turned to Gordon who had arranged the visit – “What about you?” “Game for a bit of flying?” Whether or not it was to prove to Ron that he wasn’t a wimp, or whether it was just mid-day madness, Gordon agreed! “Yeah, let’s give it a go”. The others in the group gave an applause and it was then left to me to go and ‘fix it’. The paragliders were organised by a company called Escape Adventures, a most apt name I felt. They agreed to take us the next day, after lunch, which meant that we had the rest of that day, plus all evening plus the next morning to wait. I wished we could have just gone and done it there and then, whilst we, or at least I, was in the mood. You can imagine the main topic of conversation that evening at dinner, together with the wit and humour?. “Try flapping your wings lads, just in case you’ll need them!”, “Is that dot in the sky really a paraglider?”, “Oh look, there’s a cloud covering the summit where you’ll be jumping off!” Ah well, let’s have another glass of wine…. next day we met our ‘pilots’ and were then boarded onto the jeep to take us on the hour long drive up through the National Park to the summit of Babadag from where, the brochure claimed, ‘you get a magnificent view over Fethiye, Patara, Rhodes and beyond’. At a height of around 6,000 feet, I reckoned we would! The top was not what I’d expected. Being an avid mountain walker I was surprised to see an almost flat summit area complete with loo (well a hole in the ground with a building around it) and an ambulance! Talk about apprehension! Gordon looked at me, I looked at him, we both looked at the jeep which was about to return to the base – but we turned and headed for our pilots who were undoing the equipment. There was now only one way down…. As we were in shorts and tee-shirts, we were given a thermal suit and gloves to wear plus a crash helmet. I was then strapped into a harness and the harness strapped to my pilot, who, in turn strapped himself to the paraglider. His instructions were simple. “When I say run, just run down the slope ahead and when I say left your feet, just do so and slip gently onto the seat that’s under your bum!” “Trust me. Just run off the mountain.” Run off a mountain! This chap was talking to a proficient mountain walker who’s sole concern in all weathers is to keep both feet on the ground and usually hold on with a walking stick or both hands too. What’s more the slope was not shallow, it was steep and I could see thousands of feet ahead, down to the sea. Anyway, the small wind flag must have shown the correct wind speed for in less than a minute, I was being slightly pushed from behind and the journey had begun. After slipping back onto my seat, we were lifted by a thermal and soared even higher above the mountain and it was then I realised that I had made one of the best decisions of my life. This was an amazing experience. Soaring like a bird, high over the mountains, forests and deep valleys below. Furthermore, I felt totally safe, even though I really knew it was quite a long way down. In fact, I felt safer attached to the paraglider than I have ever felt in a ‘plane. The peace was eerie. Just the sound of the air rushing past us. The views were superb and I was soon taking photo after photo, remembering to keep my feet in one or two shots, just to prove that they were being taken from the sky, by me! I was speechless – and for those that know me, that is a rare occurrence. At one stage, I felt my pilot moving around and was suddenly told to look up at the video camera he had managed to put onto an extended rod to take a film of the whole journey as a memento. When I asked who was controlling the wing whilst he was doing that – he said “I though you were” then grinned and added, “she’s used to flying herself”. Needless to say I was glad when he’d stopped filming. After about half an hour, we left land and started to fly out over the sea, looking down at the small boats making their way slowly along the bay in the pure blue water. There were another five paragliders all around and the overall scene was quite spectacular. Soon we were starting to descend and as we were coming into land, I was told to just ease myself off the seat and walk along the ground when we are just a few inches above it. Sounded simple, and it was. A perfect landing. Within a few minutes, Gordon was joining us and then we had a ‘team’ photo taken with our pilots. I don’t know if it was my imagination but we both seemed to walk back to the company’s office with a certain bounce in our walk, or was it a swagger? Either way, we both felt a great sense of achievement. Later that night, the group at dinner just couldn’t believe that we had stuck to our word and actually did the flight. They or course were not allowed to forget as we were wearing our ‘team’ tee-shirts. But the best bit of the evening was after dinner, when Gordon and I left our group to join the other paraglider team for a drink. We really felt we were part of the gang!! So, if you have the chance to try this great sport when on holiday, make sure you find a reputable company then go for it!